Green Day Musical To Become A Film

The Broadway musical AMERICAN IDIOT is in its final weeks on New York’s “great white way” before it begins an international tour. The theatrical show, based on punk rock group Green Day’s 2004 album, is in the works to become a big screen musical. Dustin Lance Black, the young screenwriter who won an Oscar for the biopic film MILK (which also nabbed the top prize for Sean Penn in his portrayal of slain gay activist Harvey Milk), is in talks to write a film based on the Broadway musical. Michael Mayer, director of the Broadway run, is set to direct the punk rock opera. Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong,who is on stage for the musical’s final weeks, tried to emulate the seminal rock group The Who and create a rock opera that commented on his generation’s disdain for American capitalism and consumerism, as represented in the sterile lives lived in suburbia. The film version could be a major attention grabber and bring in a much younger demographic than previous theater-to-film adaptations such as DREAMGIRLS, CHICAGO and NINE.

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